The Life of the Bee 
at work that impels the bees at a given 
moment to increase the size of their 
dwellings. Three reasons may dictate 
this step: an extraordinary harvest may 
call for larger receptacles, the workers 
may consider the population to be suffi- 
ciently numerous, or it may have become 
necessary that males should be born. Nor 
can we in such cases refrain from wonder- 
ing at the ingenious economy, the unerr- 
ing, harmonious conviction, with which the 
bees will pass from the small to the large, 
from the large to the small; from perfect 
symmetry to, where unavoidable, its very 
reverse, returning to ideal regularity so 
soon as the laws of a live geometry will 
allow; and all the time not losing a cell, 
not suffering a single one of their numer- 
ous structures to be sacrificed, to be ridic- 
ulous, uncertain, or barbarous, or any 
section thereof to become unfit for use. 
But I fear that I have already wandered 
206 
